Giulio Aleni

Early Years and Calling

Giulio Aleni was born in 1582 into a noble family in Brescia in northern Italy. He received a good education from childhood and was versed in philosophy, theology, astronomy and mathematics. In 1600 he entered the Society of Jesus, resolved to devote his life to it; in 1607 he received permission to go to the East as a missionary, and in 1609 he left his homeland and set out on the long journey east.

Crossing the Sea to China

In 1610 Aleni reached Macau, where he studied Chinese while teaching mathematics to his fellow Jesuits. In 1613 he formally entered inland China and made his way north. In Beijing he came to know Xu Guangqi (徐光启), a senior Ming official and a Catholic, and went south with Xu to Shanghai and Hangzhou, where, with the help of scholars such as Yang Tingyun (杨廷筠), he studied the Chinese language and the Confucian classics in depth. He adopted Chinese dress and Chinese etiquette, and associated and discussed ideas with men of letters as a Chinese scholar.

Rooted in Fujian

In December 1624, at the invitation of the retired Grand Secretary Ye Xianggao (叶向高), Aleni entered Fujian, beginning a missionary career there of about twenty-five years. In 1625 he completed the Sanshan Church (三山堂) in Fuzhou, the first Catholic church in Fujian. After that he travelled throughout Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Xinghua (now Putian), Jianning and other places, and as far as Beijing, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. According to church records, he built more than twenty large churches in Fujian and baptized more than ten thousand people, so that Catholicism took root and grew in Fujian. Because he was skilled at explaining the faith through Confucian thought and at bringing Chinese and Western learning together, he was highly respected by the scholars and was called "the Confucius from the West."

Scholarly Writings

Aleni wrote a great deal. In 1623 he published Zhifang Waiji (Record of the Regions Beyond the Imperial Geographer's Charge), a systematic introduction to the mountains, rivers, land and customs of the five continents, which was an important book through which the Chinese came to know world geography before modern times. In the same year he wrote Xixue Fan (Summary of Western Learning), outlining the European system of education and its branches of study. In the early Chongzhen years he and Zheng Hongyou (郑洪猷) and others compiled Jihe Yaofa (Essentials of Geometry) in four juan to spread Western mathematics. Between 1635 and 1637 he completed Tianzhu Jiangsheng Yanxing Jilüe (A Brief Account of the Words and Deeds of the Incarnate Lord) in eight volumes, a Chinese account of the life of Jesus that circulated widely and was later also used by Protestant missionaries. His questions and answers in debate with Ye Xianggao were collected as Sanshan Lunxue Ji (Record of Discussions on Learning at Sanshan).

Death and Influence

In 1649 Aleni died at Yanping in Fujian, at the age of sixty-seven, having given his whole life to spreading the gospel and to bringing Chinese and Western cultures together. The church he opened in Fujian and the Chinese writings he left behind became an indelible mark in the history of Catholicism in China in the late Ming, and later generations have long remembered this missionary who came from afar to the East and gave himself without reserve.